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pilkster
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UK
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:32 am
Post subject: Business planning help wanted
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Could someone please advise me with regard to business planning?
Im trying to justify spending a few months full time on affiliate site(s) when I return to the UK in June.
I have seen on this site that CPM seems to be around $5, but I guess this is different for each product/category.
If I was to aim initially for a $2000 per 28day income, I would be looking for 400,000 impressions per 28day period, or around 14,000 per day.
If I had one site with 100 pages, I would need to achieve 140imp/day/page, which I guess is possible with the right SE position.
I will be investing in SBI, web writers and paid submissions, although not in PPC (maybe later).
I am thinking that trying to achieve this with one site with 100 quality pages is better than two with 200 lower quality pages as that means twice the work more or less, and twice the directory search costs, author hire costs etc.
I know this is a very simplistic way of looking at a complex business, but do you think planning in this way is heading down the right path or am I going at it all wrong?
I am hoping that a few of you guys have done some business planning before related to affiliate marketing, and maybe you can offer some pointers...
Thanks in advance - Pilky.
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Debs
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:39 am
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Pilky, I think over time you could acheive the earnings you want, but it likely won't happen within a couple of months. You may want to consider the possibility of multiple sites, very niche oriented, approximately 75-100 pages each.
If you try to compete on broad terms, even broad niche terms, you may have a difficult time achieving the rankings needed to produce regular income in that range. Getting as niche as you can, very tightly focused, won't produce the traffic, but could produce higher conversion rates.
Multiple sites, 3 or 4, each earning between $500 and $1,000 isn't unreasonable and could be achieved within a reasonable time frame, especially if you are using content writers.
There are many great threads on here about how niche to get, dealing with multiple sites, hiring content writers, and the time frames involved in getting in the SE's and directories.
Focusing on one niche oriented site is a good idea starting out, but don't limit yourself to just one site if you want long term steady income. Things change too fast on the internet, and diversifying is a sound strategy.
Debs
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Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!" |
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tmendham
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:50 am
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I don't think you'll get the results you're looking for in a few months. 14K impressions per day is a lot for a new site. Remember, it'll take time to get indexed by Google, get time to build links, etc. Even then, most keyphrases don't get this much daily traffic (have you tried Wordtracker?).
I'd look upon investing the first few months as a "proof of concept". Discover what works and what doesn't. Then you can think about "scaling up".
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2004 2:16 am
Post subject: Re: Business planning help wanted
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| pilkster wrote: | | Im trying to justify spending a few months full time on affiliate site(s) when I return to the UK in June. |
You'll have to ask yourself if you like taking gambles, because it would be a gamble. If you have plenty of money tucked away and don't mind a gamble, go for it! My business took off like a rocket when I devoted myself to it full-time.
| Quote: | | I have seen on this site that CPM seems to be around $5, but I guess this is different for each product/category. |
The revenue that affiliates generate per 1,000 visitors varies hugely. I've seen posts by affiliates who generate huge amounts of traffic and yet generate almost no sales.
If you aim to earn a living at this stuff, you need to do your research well and make sure there's keen demand for whatever you plan to promote.
Also, do you have friends, or can you make friends, with popular sites that will link to yours? If you can, you'll be away to a flying start. If you can't, you're severely handicapped.
You can increase your revenue per thousand visitors by choosing a topic that has high-priced keywords, by writing personal endorsements, and by publishing a newsletter so that you can sell things to those visitors over and over again.
Good luck!
Allan Gardyne
Web sites that work. See the overwhelming proof...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/results |
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Yaron
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New York City
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:52 am
Post subject: Re: Business planning help wanted
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| pilkster wrote: | I have seen on this site that CPM seems to be around $5, but I guess this is different for each product/category.
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Do you mean EPM (earnings per 1000)? I think CPM stands for clicks per 1000. At any rate, why do you figure an EPM of $5?
Not too long ago I started a musical instrument site, and the current EPM there is about $25. This also includes Google AdSense. And I expect it to go higher because I'm not getting much traffic from keywords directly targeted at people buying musical instruments yet. Well, I did for about one month, and then my EPM was almost double, but Google eliminated me from those keywords. I'm currently working on getting links to my site which I hope will improve traffic. So a much higher than $5 EMP is possible with something quite ordinary as musical instruments.
Of course, I do have good content. Having junk content will probably reduce your EPM. So at least for your first site, write about something you know, or get a writer knowledgable in the subject, so that you can provide good first hand advice.
It is also very important to create a site about something people tend to buy or pay for. A poor choice for topic would be something like pictures of pets. Yes, you can be an affiliate of poster sellers, and a royalty free image sellers, but that won't do you any good if most of your visitors are people looking for cats and dogs to set as their computer desktop background. So make sure you are targeting people who want to buy.
If you do those two things, i.e. have good content and target people who clearly want to buy, I think your EPM can be much higher than $5.
Regards,
Yaron
P.S.
Allan, how are the cheap computers and DJ tips sites doing these days? |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2004 9:37 am
Post subject: Re: Business planning help wanted
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| Yaron wrote: |
Allan, how are the cheap computers and DJ tips sites doing these days? |
Unfortunately, I don't have separate stats for the DJ site, because the ad revenue is combined with that of other sites.
The cheap computers site now has an awful lot of competition from copycat and similar sites, but it still generated more than $1,000 in revenue - commissions and ad revenue - from 16,554 unique visitors last month.
I obviously taught Rupert too much. He's not working for me much now. He's building his own SBI sites.
Allan Gardyne
Web sites that work. See the overwhelming proof...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/results |
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Yaron
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New York City
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2004 11:38 pm
Post subject: Re: Business planning help wanted
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| AllanGardyne wrote: |
The cheap computers site now has an awful lot of competition from copycat and similar sites, but it still generated more than $1,000 in revenue - commissions and ad revenue - from 16,554 unique visitors last month.
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Thanks for the update, Allan. Considering all the competition, I think this is still quite reassuring.
| Quote: |
I obviously taught Rupert too much. He's not working for me much now. He's building his own SBI sites.
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I was actually thinking about this a while back, i.e. whether Rupert was still working for you or is he building his own sites. Well, since Rupert was successful at building your sites, this was bound to happen.
- Yaron |
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Neil Best
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Bronte Country UK
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2004 11:41 pm
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Alan,
With respect to Rupert, I would count that as a great success. Teaching someone not only the skills required, but helping them gain the confidence to do it on their own is a fantastic success, that many would struggle to emulate.
Not only that, but having studied the posts on these boards, I'm sure you are someone who will learn from the experience and use that knowledge to help others later.
Regards
Neil Best |
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pilkster
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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 9:48 am
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Thanks for the help y'all.
Talking about gambles Allan, I quit a well paying engineering contract to travel for a year with my other half - been meaning to do it since finishing uni, but never got round to it (too much work I couldn't turn down). We have been through the US and Canada, Cook Islands, Fiji and NZ before arriving in Cairns last September. Im in Sydney at the moment, setting off to cover the south and west coasts soon, back to the UK (my home) in June or July. A fair gamble that is paying off so far.
What I am trying to work out is if I can afford to devote the required months full time to affiliate marketing before it creates an acceptable income for me, or whether I have to go back to engineering. I had a think about doing it here in Sydney, but working out of an internet cafe is less than ideal, so I have been reading and 'brainstorming' ideas more than anything else.
Im not looking to get rich, I just want to be able to work my own hours from the location I want (ie. not England in February) any suggestions or stories about how quick peoples sites have taken off would be great - its a difficult thing to try and gauge!
Also does anyone have any experience of buying existing sites and concentrating on improving them? This may give me the quick start I need.
Cheers - Pilky
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Debs
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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 2:21 pm
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Pilky, you may want to take the tack that DatabaseDesigner did ...he went full tilt into his area of expertise and created ebooks for sale ... having your own product is one of the fastest ways to create a real income.
Do some keyphrase research with a one day paid subscription to wordtracker.
Using Clickbank to promote your ebooks is relatively cheap, and has a built in affiliate program so others can promote your ebooks too.
Db also posted to related forums and received some quick accolades as well which is always good for PR and credibility.
Debs
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Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!" |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 1:58 am
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| pilkster wrote: | | Talking about gambles Allan, I quit a well paying engineering contract to travel for a year with my other half... |
I admire you for that. You sound like an ideal candidate for taking a gamble on launching a full-time Internet business.
It's a huge, risky challenge, but trying to hold down a full-time job and launch an Internet business at the same time is also tough. You finish your working day tired, have to endure traveling time to and from work, and then have to make the time to spend on your Internet business.
When you're working full-time for yourself, if you're disciplined you can put in 16-hour days, 7 days a week if you want you, to get things started. Warning: If you do that though, make sure you don't become addicted to such crazy hours - as I did!
Could your other half get a job and both of you survive on that income while you build your own business? If that's possible, I'd say go for it!
| Quote: | | ...any suggestions or stories about how quick peoples sites have taken off would be great - its a difficult thing to try and gauge! |
You could easily spend a couple of months doing research and writing articles and then another couple of months getting links to your site and waiting for the search engines to find you.
You might try to speed up the process by spending money on AdWords or pay-per-click search engines, but it's highly likely you'd be throwing your money away unless you'd created a site with a high conversion rate. That's not something a newcomer is very likely to do.
You can speed up the process by paying people to write articles - see the posts by speedguide - and speed up the search engines if you have friends with high PageRank sites who will link to you.
In fact, do you have a circle of friends who would all link to you from their main pages? That would be ideal.
| Quote: | | Also does anyone have any experience of buying existing sites and concentrating on improving them? This may give me the quick start I need. |
Pilky, I don't know much about you so please forgive me if I'm wrong, but I wonder if you have the enough experience to do that successfully.
You'll have to decide what sort of business suits your personality and interests.
Options include (you can mix and match these):
Create your own ebook.
Build themed content sites for affiliate commissions and AdSense revenue.
Aim to get traffic from free search engines.
Pay for traffic from AdWords and pay-per-click search engines.
Build a large site and rely mainly on search engines.
Build a small site and rely heavily on promoting it in forums.
Write a newsletter.
As I've often said, I reckon someone new to Internet marketing has the best chance of success with a themed content site aimed at getting free search engine traffic. And if you use SBI, you can concentrate on content instead of the techie stuff.
If you want quick traffic and quick revenue, here are some things to consider.
When I launched AssociatePrograms.com, I participated extensively in email discussion lists with lively posts which drew attention to my site. Can you do that?
Do you have the ability to create something that people will talk about? Something lively, interesting, extremely useful and perhaps a bit controversial?
Remember, the first step in selling is to be noticed, to get attention.
Far too many affiliates build safe, bland, boring sites. Can you do the opposite? Can you build one that's lively and fascinating, one that people will recommend to their friends?
If you can do that, it won't be a gamble. You'll be successful.
Allan Gardyne
Web sites that work. See the overwhelming proof...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/results |
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Yaron
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Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:34 am
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| AllanGardyne wrote: | Do you have the ability to create something that people will talk about? Something lively, interesting, extremely useful and perhaps a bit controversial?
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Not only does it have to be "interesting, extremely useful and perhaps a bit controversial," but also something you know about, or can learn, and something that doesn't have much competition.
This is almost like asking if you can come up with the next killer app. for personal computers. The danger with trying to come up with the next killer app. is that you might never come up with one.
My philosophy is to start with Web sites that are good but not necessarily fabulous. Once I have those generating income, I'll try to think of the next killer project, which may or may not be an affiliate Web site.
So far I have one site finished, another one almost finished, and another in planning. They are interesting and useful, but I wouldn't say they are extremely so, nor are they contraversial.
Rupert's case studies seem to fall under the same category of good but not fabulous, and they did fairly well.
- Yaron |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:30 am
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| Yaron wrote: | | The danger with trying to come up with the next killer app. is that you might never come up with one ... They are interesting and useful, but I wouldn't say they are extremely so... |
Good points. I would't want to scare anyone away by making being an affiliate sound too difficult.
Here's a useful, interesting point of view, from GoogleGuy, the Google employee (this quote comes from http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/archives/medium.html )...
"If you have a 'buy it now' site, you're definitely going to attract a certain type of visitor (maybe the most valuable single type, by the way). But the more unique information you can provide to distinguish your site, the better off you'll be. A buy-it-now site with nothing but boilerplate or affiliate links doesn't add a lot of value for a searcher who is looking for context, comparison-shopping, or more background.
"This is all just my personal take of course, but I'd recommend building the sort of resource site that people can use to read and research, the sort of site that people bookmark and return to. That can come from original content: a good newsletter, for example, or a forum where people have a good community and discuss the pros and cons of different types of widgets. It can come from honest, unbiased reviews. It can come from providing more information than anyone else about a product. But if there's nothing that makes a site stand out -- if a user perceives it as a cookie cutter site with little additional reason to use it versus another site -- then you can see where it's not of as much use to a searcher."
To sum up, you could say that GoogleGuy agrees with Yaron. 
Allan Gardyne
Getting started on the right track.
Download the free Affiliate Masters Course:
http://AssociatePrograms.com/search/affiliate-masters.shtml |
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Charlie
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Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:12 pm
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The other thing to bear in mind, as has been discussed before, is how much time you are prepared to dedicate to maintaining the site..?
The more you try and get return visitors (as opposed to relying on passing SE traffic), generally the more effort it takes to keep things running.
Reguularly updated content and ezines all have great value, but they take time on an on-going basis. Some people prefer the more plug-in direct marketing model, especially when running multiple sites.
Just a thought,
Charlie.
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Yaron
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Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:41 pm
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| Charlie wrote: | The other thing to bear in mind, as has been discussed before, is how much time you are prepared to dedicate to maintaining the site..?
The more you try and get return visitors (as opposed to relying on passing SE traffic), generally the more effort it takes to keep things running.
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Yes that's a very important point that I now live by. I think Allan said something about this in one of his last newsletters.
The more effort you put into a site, the more risk you're taking, because if it fails, you've waisted more of your time. That's why I'm trying to make it with several lesser sites first, and not with a single big one.
I've already invested huge amounts of time in two big software projects that included the filing of two patents. One project will probably amount to nothing, and the success of the second is still pending, but will require a further large investment of my time.
After that second one I had to ask myself how long can I go on sinking so much of my time with no tangible monetary results. That's why I turned to affiliate marketing with small sites. The success people here have experienced with comprable (or lesser) sites to what I have is encouraging. But as long as I'm waiting for that search engine traffic to develop, I'm a nervous wreck. 
A few days ago I spotted some traffic comming from two separate forum posts (on two different forums) with people recommending one of my sites. Now that was cool!
Regards,
Yaron |
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